


Iron, Red and Gold

by Miss_M



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: Death, F/M, Fairytale Motifs, Gen, Post-Canon, death by fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-25 13:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/953471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is the last of her house, and the Dragon Queen likes to kill her enemies by fire. In her last hours, Cersei Lannister decides that she will not scream while she burns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iron, Red and Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Never thought I’d see the day when I wrote a fic about my least favorite (most unfavorite? the one I loves to hate?) ASOIAF character. I blame the Brothers Grimm and Mirri Maz Duur. Without the gruesome, ingenious and incongruous detail at the conclusion of the original version of “Snow White” and the Lhazareen godswife’s awesome if impractical defiance, I may never have written about Cersei, even to indulge my mildly sadistic streak. You might also spot the influence of “The Red Shoes” by Hans Christian Andersen. (What is it with Danes who always use all three of their names? That’s a topic for another day. :-P) 
> 
> Spoilers through ADWD, I own nothing.

She sits in her cell, convinced that she will not scream, but she knows this is a lie. Her whole life seems a tapestry of lies, all of them unraveled at last. What use is one more? 

The Dragon Queen likes to kill her enemies by fire. Every inch her fire-mad father, Cersei thinks, but there is no comfort in the thought. No sense of superiority left to the last scion of House Lannister. 

She has heard rumors of her brothers, still alive, one on an island, the other somewhere in Essos. She hopes the rumors are false, that they are both food for crows long since, and she the last lion, the proudest. They always got away with more than she did, got to do more and be more. Where people’s eyes clung to her like tiny claws, always holding her back and hobbling her steps, they slid over her brothers and off, leaving nothing behind. A little scorn, a little frightened admiration, maybe. She should at least get to be the last Lannister. It would be just. 

She can feel her pride falling apart like old cloth in this damp dungeon, growing thin alongside her last hours. She ignores it. She will not scream to make the Dragon Bitch’s court dance. 

She cannot blame Daenerys Targaryen for doing what she, Cersei, never got to do. She cannot even blame Tyrion. She cringes every time her mind calls him brother. She may have broken the laws of gods and men, but he is parricide and matricide both, and yet free. Or dead. Better off than she. 

So she blames Jaime. He has always been a welcome receptacle for her ambition and desire, a mirror into which she could look and see herself as the best of them all. Even if no one else ever saw it. In the end, she suspects Jaime did not, either. He should be the one in this dungeon, waiting to be dragged before that thrice-damned throne in a mummer’s show of power and humiliation. If he had not gotten himself captured, if he had come back when she needed him to keep the mob at bay, if he had not run off on some foolish quest with that pig-faced witch, he would be the one here now. 

And where would I be then, she wonders. Dead already. Sitting in this cell with him, a ghastly ending to a life started together. 

If she were dead, at least she would be with the children. Soon. She grits her teeth, what is left of them after one of the turnkeys took offense to her words of defiance. 

They come to fetch her for her audience with the new queen. They strip her and wash her, but do not shave her. She wonders idly if they only shave queens for street shamings, but some obscure bit of court protocol allows them the dubious protection afforded by the hair on the two parts of her body a woman has no use for. The one is wanted by none, the other by all at the exclusion of the rest of her. If Jaime were here, he would find that amusing. Maybe even hum an appropriately lurid tavern song to make her laugh. 

Cersei smiles, catches the servant drying her arm watching her oddly. Let them look. There is nothing left for their eyes to snag on, she is stripped down to the bare core of herself. 

The Great Hall is packed, but Cersei only has eyes for the beautiful, young queen on her throne. She knows the girl to be ferocious enough to sit on it, and she wishes her joy of it. They watch each other, the young woman and the older, Maiden and Crone. Cersei silently advises the Dragon Queen to never have children. They will grow up or die, and leave her all alone. Perhaps then she will be grateful for how the throne pricks her, a voice which sounds like Jaime whispers in her head, and Cersei smiles. She feels a little drunk, though they only gave her dirty water to drink. 

The Dragon Queen’s face is a mask of ice, no fire visible. 

Cersei stands before the throne, naked, the eyes of the whole world behind her. She is the apple of every eye, more precious a sight than she ever was before. Nobody steps forward to force her to her knees. She wonders what form of fire will be her end. Will someone come in with a stack of kindling or a pot of wildfire? Or maybe they will lead her to wherever the dragons are kept? 

Two servants bring a large brazier before the Dragon Queen. 

Daenerys Targaryen, the First of Her Name, reaches into the brazier with her bare, pale hands, and pulls out a pair of shoes. Shoes made of iron, so hot they glow like the banners of House Lannister, all dust and ashes now. Cersei would laugh, but suddenly she cannot feel her tongue in her mouth. She will not scream. 

The queen descends the steps from her throne, comes to stand in front of her captive, in the empty space between the throne and the eyes of the world. Cersei wonders at how short the girl is as she kneels and puts the red-hot shoes on Cersei’s bare, white feet. 

Cersei does not struggle. She will show them all how a true queen dies. The mummery is not even funny: a conqueror queen kneeling before the unrepentant beggar from a broken house, as though to wash her feet in a supreme act of royal humility. 

They will not laugh or scoff at her death. They will not pity her. They will have to watch, unmoving, as she dies, silent and unbroken, turned into a statue. 

The shoes glow red and gold with heat. Her skin sears, she can smell her flesh roasting. She thinks of feasts, platters of succulent meat carried on men’s shoulders, of jousts and tales of war, of hungry hands and an eager mouth. The pain is like nothing she has ever known. When she can no longer feel her feet, when her hair catches fire, she does not know if she is alive or dead, standing still or lying down.

Long after she has screamed her throat raw, the red-hot iron shoes compel Cersei Lannister, the last of her house, to dance for the Dragon Queen and her court.


End file.
